2007 Mid-Ohio race winner and recent Indianapolis 500 champion Scott Dixon sits atop the Series' driver point standings, 63 points ahead of Team Penske's Helio Castroneves. Dixon, last year's IndyCar Series Championship runner-up, has secured four race wins and five poles and will look to increase his lead not only over Castroneves, but also Target Chip Ganassi teammate Dan Wheldon who sits in third, and Andretti Green Racing's foursome of Tony Kanaan, Danica Patrick, Hideki Mutoh and Marco Andretti.
"As always I look forward to going to road courses during the season and more so when it is a race that we won last year," said Scott Dixon. "Mid-Ohio is a very challenging track and requires a lot of emphasis on qualifying well. I hope to improve on our qualifying from last year. We tested for a few hours just recently and I believe we found a few things. So all in all I can't wait to get back this weekend and try to defend our title."
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course may be the great equalizer in the field of 27, as all of the drivers who moved to the IndyCar Series in 2008 have a strong road racing background. Both Enrique Bernoldi and Justin Wilson have experience competing in Formula One while Mario Dominguez, Bruno Junqueira, Oriol Servia, Will Power and Graham Rahal all participated in Champ Car. E.J. Viso competed in GP2 and Mario Moraes in the British Formula 3 championship. Look for the top five to be challenged up front by these experienced road racers during the 85-lap race.
The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio presented by Westfield Insurance is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 20. ABC HD will televise the race live beginning at 1:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 20, while XM Satellite Radio will air the race at 1:30 p.m. ET on XM Satellite Channel 145.
Scott Dixon didn't have the best car Saturday night at Nashville Superspeedway, but things worked out for him anyway. Dixon stayed out on a late caution to take the lead, and took the win in the rain-shortened Firestone Indy 200.
Dixon grabbed the lead on Lap 149 and had enough fuel to stay in the top spot until rain ended the race with 29 laps left, giving him his third consecutive victory at the Nashville Superspeedway and his fourth this season.
"It's a big night for Target Chip Ganassi Racing," Dixon said. "Every time we ran this car, I've won with it, here at Nashville and at Watkins Glen. It's been a hell of a lot of luck for us, but you could not have been luckier than we were tonight. It was a miscommunication on the pit call. That's the only reason that I didn't come in. I was angry for a few laps, but when I saw that rain coming down, I thought, 'Oh, this could work out pretty good. (Tony Kanaan) was pretty strong and he seemed to get the worst out of it."
Dixon tied an IndyCar Series record with his third consecutive victory at the 1.33-mile oval, and teammate Dan Wheldon finished second as the race was red-flagged. It was the 100th automobile racing victory for Chip Ganassi Racing (22 in the IndyCar Series), and Dixon held aloft his third hand-painted Gibson guitar trophy.
Wheldon added, "I absolutely did not (have a second-place car tonight), but sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. It's a great night for Target Chip Ganassi Racing in the end. To finish 1-2, and the rain seemed to be powered by Energizer Batteries because it kept coming down. I had a lot of drag in the car and it made it very difficult. I had to lift a lot in traffic, and as I said, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good."
Helio Castroneves, who started from the PEAK Motor Oil Pole, finished third.
"It's not the race we wanted to have, especially the way it finished. I was told that the Ganassi guys had four laps of fuel left," Castroneves stated. "That's two minutes. If the rain had come two minutes later, we would have won the race. But sometimes you have to be lucky than good. They did that, and there's nothing we could do. Team Penske did its race, and we finished third. It was good enough for what we had. The car was really tough to handle, and third is good enough for the championship."
Dixon led 53 of the 171 laps in the Honda-powered Dallara before the race was called.
"Having been a part of this team for almost seven years now, you understand exactly what it takes to win the big races and championships at the highest levels of racing," said Dixon, this year's Indianapolis 500 winner who also won the IndyCar Series title in his rookie season in 2003. "I think the tremendous amount of success the organization has seen is a direct result of the team Chip has assembled over the years. The people are the ones that truly make a difference."
Dan Wheldon joined the Chip Ganassi team after winning the 2005 Indianapolis 500 and series title with Andretti Green Racing.
"I was fortunate enough to win in my very first time in a car for Chip in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, but one of the fondest memories I have was being able to win for him in my first IndyCar race as a TCGR driver," said Wheldon, who acknowledged he's agreed to a contract extension through 2009. "He's a tough guy at times but one with immense respect for racing. My personality fits well with Chip and I'm proud to drive for him. I'm not going anywhere until I win him another Indianapolis 500."
Scott Dixon needs to only look at the second half of the 2007 IndyCar Series season to make him alternately smile and shudder as it relates to this year's championship race. He was 65 points arrears of leader Dario Franchitti exiting the Richmond race, but rattled off four victories in the final eight to outscore Franchitti 370-331 and set up a season-ending duel for the series title.
The momentum hasn't slowed. The driver of the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing entry has eight top-five finishes in nine races, including three victories, and holds a 43-point advantage over Team Penske's Helio Castroneves at the halfway point of the season. Dixon's teammate, Dan Wheldon, is 52 points behind.
Dixon isn't comfortable with the cushion, especially with six of the final nine races on road/street courses. First up is the Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen (July 6) on the 3.4-mile Watkins Glen International circuit.
Dixon's steady results netted the 2003 title when he was a freshman in the series, and similar results have bred confidence throughout the No. 9 car crew. Castroneves hasn't forfeited many points though he's looking for his first victory since April 2007 and his first IndyCar Series title. The No. 3 entry has finished in the top five in eight of the nine events, including runner-up four times.
Tony Kanaan is fourth in the title search (82 points back) and teammate Danica Patrick is fifth (131 behind). AGR driver Hideki Mutoh leads the Bombardier Learjet Rookie of the Year standings and is sixth overall. Marco Andretti, Ryan Briscoe, Oriol Servia and Ed Carpenter also are in the top 10.
On the tail end of a frustrating first half of the IndyCar Series season, Tony Kanaan found relief on a steamy night at Richmond International Raceway.
"I'm going to enjoy my win for sure," said Kanaan of his 13th victory in the IndyCar Series, which included five in 2007. "I knew that I had to keep fighting. There's nothing else I can do. If you're going to have the season you expect every year, then it's going to be pretty boring I would say."
Team Penske's Helio Castroneves finished in the runner-up spot at a caution-filled Saturday night race at Richmond International Raceway with an impressive on-track performance. Castroneves went from an 18th place starting spot to second in the 300-lap SunTrust Indy Challenge, eventually finishing one position ahead of Scott Dixon, the only driver ahead of Castroneves in the 2008 IndyCar Series championship standings.
"I was driving the wheels off it," Castroneves said about his run in the No. 3 Team Penske Dallara/Honda. "I was trying everything I could to make up spots and we were able to have a good showing today."
Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon started fourth and sixth and survived 102 caution laps. Wheldon finished fourth in the 300-lap SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond.
"It was a tough night." Dixon said. "We had a very good car. Once again it was very tough to pass here. Even when the tires got old it was very hard to get close to people. If we were out front, I think we had a car to win. Kanaan definitely looked pretty strong tonight but I think the Target car still had a chance."
"I was trying to be aggressive while trying to finish the race and it was difficult behind the other cars." Wheldon added. " We knew there would be more than a few wrecks tonight, and that proved to be the case. The car shut off on the last lap for some reason and that's not what we need when we're trying to close the point gap."
Dan Wheldon recorded Target’s second win of the season through four rounds, becoming the first repeat winner at Kansas Speedway in the process. Wheldon opened up a 2.1778 second gap over Tony Kanaan and notched his 14th career victory. Wheldon’s last victory came at Kansas Speedway last season. The win is the 18th for Target Chip Ganassi Racing in the IndyCar Series, and 58th overall in open wheel racing.
Wheldon moves up from fifth to third in the Indy racing League points standings with 135 points. Next up for the team is the Indianapolis 500, May 25th at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (NOON ET on ABC).
Apparently Chip Ganassi stays on Wheldon pretty hard. First there is a fuel mileage issue.
I told a few people in interviews already about this" Wheldon says, "Chip gets on my #### so much about not saving fuel. He's on me all the time. Apparently he says that I just like to lead from the front and that's lost me a lot of races. So every possible opportunity, I was saving."
Then there is the whining thing.
"Last year there were situations where I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm not allowed to say too much because Chip says I sound like a spoiled brat when I complain about stuff like that."
Too bad the Englishman has a bit in his mouth. You would think a former IRL champion would be free to speak as he sees fit. I guess not. It's disappointing that a young veteran of Wheldon's stature, just hitting his stride, feels like his owner is acting like his daddy.
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